Northwestern New Mexico
We’ve compiled the best of the best in Northwestern New Mexico - browse our top choices for the top things to see or do during your stay.
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1. Acoma Pueblo
Atop a 367-foot mesa that rises abruptly from the valley floor, Acoma Pueblo's terraced, multistory, multiunit Sky City is like no other pueblo structure. It's one of the oldest continually inhabited spots in North America, with portions believed to be more than 1,500 years old. Captain Hernando de Alvarado, a member of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado's expedition of 1540, was the first European to see Acoma. He reported that he had "found a rock with a village on top, the strongest position ever seen in the world." The Spanish eventually conquered the Acoma people and brutally compelled them to build San Estéban del Rey, the immense adobe church that stands to this day. Native American laborers cut the massive vigas for the church's ceiling 30 mi away on Mt. Taylor and physically carried them back to the mesa. About a dozen families live at the mesa-top pueblo full time, with most other Acomas living on Native American land nearby and returning only in summer and for celebrations, such as the feast day of St. Stephen (September 2), and Christmas mass (both are open to the public). Acoma's artisans are known for their thin-walled pottery, hand-painted with intricate black-and-white or polychrome geometrical patterns. Once you park at the mesa base, plan to spend time in the superb Haak'u Museum at the Sky City Cultural Center. Changing exhibits explore traditional and contemporary arts, and are perfectly set in this modernist interpretation of traditional pueblo forms, with fine sandstone detailing and glass panels prepared to evoke historic mica windows. Visitation on the mesa top is by an hour-long guided tour; you're whisked by van up a steep road from behind the center and then led about the mesa community on foot (allow extra time if you choose to walk back down instead, via the ancient staircase carved into the side of the mesa). An Acoma guide will point out kivas, hornos, and unforgettable views toward their sacred sites of Enchanted Mesa and Mt. Taylor, and describe pueblo history in-depth, as well as direct you to artisan displays throughout the village. (Note: the terrain can be uneven; heeled shoes or flip-flops are not advised.) There's no electricity or running water in the village, but you can see cars parked outside many homes—one wonders what it must have been like to visit Acoma before the road was constructed in 1969. Open hours vary slightly, depending on the weather. Videotaping, sketching, and painting are prohibited, and a permit is required for still photography. Note that the pueblo prohibits photography of the church interior and exterior as well as the adjoining cemetery. As at all indigenous locales, ask permission before photographing residents or their artwork. Regroup back at Haak'u and browse the gallery gift shop and bookstore or enjoy blue-corn pancakes or a grilled chicken wrap with green-chile guacamole at the cozy Y'aak'a (Corn) Café. There is shuttle service available if you are staying at the Sky City Hotel/Casino (888/759–2489). Open hours are subject to tribal activities or weather conditions; it is best to check their online calendar or call ahead.
Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, 87034, USA505-552–6604Sight Details
Rate Includes: Pueblo tour $12, Haak\'u Museum $4, Apr.–Oct., museum daily 9–6, Pueblo tours daily 9–5 (last full tour leaves at 4); Nov.–Mar., museum daily 9–5, tours daily 8–4. The café closes 1 hr before the museum. -
2. Chaco Culture National Historical Park
The roads accessing Chaco Canyon, home to Chaco Culture National Historical Park, do a fine job of deterring exploration: they are mostly unpaved and can be very muddy and/or icy during inclement weather (particularly NM 57 from the south). The silver lining is that the roads leading in—and the lack of gas stations, food concessions, or hotels once you get off the highway—keep this archaeological treasure free from the overcrowding that can mar other national park visits: only about 85,000 people visit annually, compared with at least 10 times that number to Canyon de Chelly, which is 80 mi away as the crow flies. Once past the rough roads you'll see one of the most amazingly well-preserved and fascinating ruin sites on the continent. The excavations here have uncovered what was once the administrative and economic core of a vast community—the locus of a system of over 400 mi of ancient roads that have been identified to date. While there is evidence that people lived in the canyon at least since 400 AD, the majority of these roads, and the buildings and dwellings that make up the canyon site, were constructed from 850 to 1250 AD. Several of the ancient structures—such as an immense Great Kiva, Casa Rinconada, or Pueblo Bonito—are simply astounding, if only for the extreme subtlety and detail of their precisely cut and chinked sandstone masonry. But there's still a shroud of mystery surrounding them. Did 5,000 people really once live here, as some archaeologists believe? Or was Chaco maintained solely as a ceremonial and trade center? The more that's learned about the prehistoric roadways and the outlying sites that they connect, or wondrous creations such as the Sun Dagger —an arrangement of stone slabs positioned to allow a spear of sunlight to pass through and bisect a pair of spiral petroglyphs precisely at each summer solstice—the more questions arise about the sophistication of the people that created them. At the visitor center you can meander through a small museum on Chaco culture, peruse the bookstore, buy bottled water (but no food), and inquire about hiking permits. From here you can drive (or bike) along the 9-mi paved inner loop road to the various trailheads for the ruins; at each you can find a small box containing a detailed self-guided tour brochure (a 50¢ donation per map is requested). Many of the 13 ruins at Chaco require a significant hike, but a few of the most impressive are just a couple of hundred yards off the road. The stargazing here is spectacular: there is a small observatory and numerous telescopes, which are brought out for star parties from April through October; ask about the schedule at the front desk. Pueblo Bonito is the largest and most dramatic of the Chaco Canyon ruins, a massive semicircular "great house" that once stood four stories in places and held some 600 rooms (and 40 kivas). The park trail runs alongside its fine outer mortar-and-sandstone walls, up a hill that allows a great view over the entire canyon, and then right through the ruin and several rooms. It's the most substantial of the structures—the ritualistic and cultural center of a Chacoan culture that may once have comprised some 150 settlements.
View Tours and ActivitiesUSA505-786–7014-x221Sight Details
Rate Includes: $8 per vehicle, good for 7 days, Park daily dawn–dusk; visitor center daily 8–5 -
3. El Morro National Monument
Park (National/State/Provincial)When you see the imposing 200-foot-high sandstone bluff that served as a rest stop for Indians, explorers, soldiers, and pioneers, you can understand how El Morro ("the Headland") got its name. The bluff is the famous Inscription Rock, where wayfarers stopped to partake of a waterhole at its base and left behind messages, signatures, and petroglyphs carved into the soft sandstone. The paved Inscription Trail makes a quick ½-mi round-trip from the visitor center and passes that historic water source and numerous inscriptions. Although El Morro is justly renowned for Inscription Rock, try to allow an extra 90 minutes or so to venture along the spectacular, moderately strenuous 2-mi (round-trip) Headland Trail, which meanders past the excavated edge of an extensive field of late-13th-century pueblo ruins, cuts along the precarious rim of a deep box canyon, and affords panoramic views across the Zuni Mountains and El Malpais. The monument's compact museum chronicles 700 years of human history in this region.
Visitor center: turnoff is on south side of NM 53, , 87321, USA505-783–4226Sight Details
Rate Includes: $3 per person -
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